Every day there are more and more companies that handle untold amounts of information, where we talk about petabytes. If we add the management of data from social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, there comes the concept of Big Data.
Big data then refers to a set of data whose size is beyond the ability of most of the software used to capture, process and manage the information within a tolerable period. It is at this stage that there is a need, on the part of organizations to have an enabling technology that allows them to exploit the full potential of big data.
Along with the huge volume of data, organizations face the problem that the information is distributed throughout the structure and distant physical locations. If that were not enough, the data come from various sources, many of which are dysfunctional.
In response to these challenges, new breed of big data service providers have tools to govern these large volumes of information, and meet the challenges of big data.
As service providers play an important role in the whole network, big data technology promises them a great opportunity. For example, the U.S. startup Windsor Circle allows e-commerce companies of all sizes to understand their customers and target the content they are submitting. Windsor Circle automatically defines customer segments ready to renew their purchase with an appropriate message.
The result of collaboration with EMC and Teradata was the decision to launch the SAS analytic applications in a distributed computing environment for processing the transfer directly to the data, as in the traditional analytical systems in which data is passed to the application. EMC is also pushing Greenplum HD, an enterprise-ready Hadoop platform, and Isilon NAS for Hadoop to big data providers to take on big Hadoop jobs for clients.
Using the Web as a basis for their software, service providers can reduce their costs and pass these economies of scale to their customers. A BI tool such as Yurbi helps businesses to interpret their results and to pass the data to data analysts and scientists.
Square Register is another example of a tool providing free analysis. Among these data is the ability to know the average value of transactions during a specific period. By combining the analysis of data collected, Square makes it easier for small businesses to understand their customers and data on their payments, which were previously difficult to collect and monitor.
Trend Micro in association with the U.S. government’s Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) and the Canadian government supplies a daily 5 TB of data listing all the malicious activity the organizations see.
Businesses have much to gain from the analysis of big data relating to their business. With the emergence of new tools based BI in the cloud, businesses now have the means to optimize their operations and use data analysis to become more efficient.
